Content ID for music partners

The features described in this article are available only to partners who use YouTube's Content ID matching system.

YouTube's Content ID system enables music partners to easily identify and manage their music on YouTube. YouTube scans uploaded videos against a database of music that you've submitted. When content in a user-uploaded video matches a work that you own, you get to decide whether to monetize the video, block it, or track it.

To use Content ID, you create assets in YouTube's rights management system. Each asset represents a piece of intellectual property. You can deliver four types of music assets:

YouTube also recognizes relationships between these assets. A Music Video asset may embed a Sound Recording asset, and a Sound Recording embeds one or more Composition Share assets.

To create assets, you upload the media files and their associated metadata using spreadsheet templates. You must only create assets for items you own the rights to; for example, music labels should not create Composition Share assets without an appropriate contract, and music publishers should not create Sound Recording assets.

Using the references associated with your assets, Content ID identifies user-uploaded videos that include your copyrighted work and makes a claim that asserts your ownership of content within the video.

When one of your assets claims ownership of a user-uploaded video, YouTube applies that asset's policy to the video. In cases where a Sound Recording asset and its embedded Composition Share assets have different policies, YouTube applies the most restrictive of the policies; see Which policy applies? for more details.

Hosting policies for music partners

Non-music content in your music content manager account must be substantially related to existing music assets in the account (artist interviews, for example). Partners with non-music content should discuss possible solutions with their partner manager to avoid potential loss of feature access, such as the ability to link channels.